Cold Bones, Yeah That's My Love
by WonderousPlaceForAnEcho
Summary: 1 shot. Laura really wraps her head around what it means to love someone. Carmilla talks about love, music, abstract things so Laura can understand she's not human because at face value she doesn't look immortal and it takes little reminders for it to sink in.


Author's Note: Due to vacationing in Germany there were moments that made me think I need to put that in a story. With music there were songs I felt had to go into a story as well. The title is from the song Where's My Love. Gorgeous tune and lyrics. Once a previous boss said there was a Lorde song that made him think of me specifically because of the lyric "I'm kind of over gettin' told to throw my hands up in the air…so there" and I think that fits Carmilla's personality too. This story is how Laura is slowly reminded Carmilla isn't human because I think the show is really sophomoric and doesn't delve into that enough. It was my impression Laura forgets Carmilla isn't just a moody college student, of course because its really hopeful and easier to view her as her girlfriend. And yeah, this story may come off as pretentious, but I think Carmilla is to a degree.

* * *

Beautiful. Escapist. Irrational.

Carmilla didn't like to talk about her "loss of humanity" as she half jokes, dramatically stated. Her tragic backstory was never visited again. As Laura looked at Carmilla…or unabashedly stared at her girlfriend the three words came to mind as she considered how her death and what could be considered a cruel rebirth wasn't elucidated or shared in any further detail. Carmilla was quiet. She seemed demure and fragile with her small bones and features but she knew Carmilla wasn't a surface person…creature…being.

Carmilla revisited books like Laura rewatched movies and her tv shows.

"They're dull cutie," she said with a smirk because it was easy to rile the younger woman.

"They're cult tv shows, they certainly are not," she replied quickly and stressed the word cult like it gave accreditation.

Carmilla shrugged and responded with an ease and grace that came with being comfortable in one's own body, "consider me old fashioned."

"I consider you old," she cut her off, eyes filled with a playful challenge as she met dark eyes that slightly crinkled in the corners as Carmilla tried to suppress a smirk.

"But with literature I can read a piece for the tenth, fifteenth time and relearn, see from a different angle, glean a different meaning because I may have changed, evolved or…de-evolved," she said the last word with a self-deprecating tone "but on some level I'm shown another perspective."

It was moments like this Carmilla seemed like she was playing the part of a moody college student. Laura knew she played the part too well but the façade would crack when they were alone.

She remembered a time there were in Paris and Carmilla had taken a bite from a small spoon of crème brule and Laura stopped thinking. It was innocently innocuous and the sexist thing she'd seen her girlfriend do and the content moan that followed made the journalist student glad she wasn't in the middle of a conversation. Carmilla literally purred and said in such a smooth voice, "this tastes like a good night kiss."

Laura felt her eyes enlarge as she thought _oh my god. She's trying to kill me. No…no..we've talked about this. She loves me alive…how alive I am._

The vampire took another smile bite, clearly savoring it with another moan, smaller but just as effective.

 _She wouldn't intentionally torture me…right?_ With a tilt of her head she was amused Carmilla was simply being Carmilla, enjoying it all, "living in the moment" so to say and Laura took a deep breathe to remind herself Carmilla was poetic and appealing without trying.

Hours later they had gone into a museum. They stood in front of a Kandinsky and to be honest Laura was growing impatient and wanted to get to the impressionists because the vampire had talked at length about loving them and she wanted to see the appeal-wanted to know why Carmilla was so passionate about paint formed into blurry images.

Laura slowly took her hand, laced their fingers and asked Carmilla's profile, "have you been here before?"

"This is my twenty-sixth time cutie," she replied with amusement and Laura was hit with waves of shock that Carmilla acted like she was seeing things for the first time, analyzing the art like it could talk to her, tell her secrets, dreams, hopes and there she was wanting to rush off to another section in her first visit. Then part of her realized in the second wave that painful fact that Carmilla had all the time in the world to wander museums. She probably did take it in by herself, reveling in the pace of being solitary.

"Twenty-sixth," she repeated in a whisper and awe.

"Mm. I had spent hours going back and forth in art houses and cafes. An entire day of appreciating and adoring the weird, fantastical, random bullshit that people create. All for the sake of creating. Some self-indulgent and some that…you would swear there is something after all this temporary living or…stalled longevity. I wouldn't have had certain thoughts if it hadn't been for the images in front of me at the museums and hole in the wall installations. Abstractions created by humans are wonderfully, occasionally supernatural." She paused and looked at the painting with some degree of love, kinship and understanding as she let her eyes pass over the details. "It's like seeing an old friend."

And then Laura fell in love with Carmilla a little more.

Out of curiosity, one of Laura's dominant personality traits, she once asked the vampire what it felt like to change. She painfully remembered stumbling over the question with a self-consciousness that came with being uncertain in an uncharted subject. "What…um…did it…feel like to become…immortal…like the process?" She had paused because her throat went dry as she watched Carmilla raise a pale hand and take the earbud out. Though she could very faintly hear the music between the five feet of space as they sat separately on their beds she knew Carmilla heard it the question loud and with such clarity that somehow always shocked her. The brunette looked up from her book, slowly raised her eyebrows as the question was out of the blue and then narrowed her eyes.

Laura was distracted by the music. She expected a classical piece but heard lyrics that drifted into heavy but gorgeous instrumentals. Without realizing her eyes shifted back to Carmilla who was looking at her pensively as though she was considering her next move. It struck her how calculating and meticulous her girlfriend could be while equally nonchalant. As Mattie said once, "Oh darling sister, you're like that Lorde song…how does it go? Mmm right… I'm kind of over gettin' told to throw my hands up in the air…so there." The taller woman gave a sly smile. "Always the recalcitrant daughter, revolting and rebelling with a beautifully strategic fury." Mattie's voice sounded like silk. Laura's eyes widened, realizing Carmilla's beloved sister knew she didn't perform every order their mother demanded but had purposefully opposed behind the scenes in whispered actions.

Carmilla surprisingly took it as a compliment as she gave the softest, sincere smile she had seen her offer to anyone. Mattie could get away with insightful teasing and Laura in the moment felt like she had to and would learn Carmilla with more time. Time. That invisible thing that made them so separate and in ways incredibly divided. The experiences that were accumulated with time. Her thoughts wandered as she waited impatiently while her girlfriend stood and went to her overflowing, organized bookshelf, gently, as though it were a delicate canvas took a thin book and immediately found the page. Naturally Carmilla didn't have to flip through and search. Laura could tell in the brief exchange as it was handed over. She wasn't surprised the vampire, her vampire had it memorized.

On the side of the page, neatly and next to a part that was underlined with consideration and in pencil she read Carmilla's notes.

Everything is contradictory. The heart crawls. The blood slips to a stop. But the mind goes. Screaming. Gasping as the sense speed…

She paused and looked back to Carmilla who resumed her seat on her own bed, refocused on her music, but glanced back as though to say I'm giving you space to read and take it in, to consume and process what I've given. Because you asked. You'll have your answer. Somehow Carmilla said this all in her subtle body language.

Laura looked down at the book and read the underlined sentences that followed just under Carmilla's handwriting.

quicken them; she flies  
upstream-she arches  
in the long gown of her body, she leaps  
into the walls of water,  
she falls through like the torn  
silvery half-drowned body  
of any woman come to term, caught  
as mortality drives triumphantly toward  
immortality, the shaken bones like  
cages of fire.

It took reading the note and typed words three times to begin to process how painful wasn't even close to the right word when it came to how Carmilla was forced into immortality. A part of her knew she would never understand. It was too abstract and simply beyond her understanding. She was human. Limited. Without meaning to she let out a small huff at her inadequacies.

"….Sometimes…." Laura took a long breath. "sometimes I hate your impervious-ness." She tripped over her phrasing, never having voiced she hated her immortality and watched intently for Carmilla's reaction that shouldn't have been a surprise yet still was.

A sad smile and downward, pensive eyes. "Sometimes I forget too," she said whistfully, as though she had once wished her immortality away, perhaps screamed it to starry nights when she was younger, knowing she wouldn't receive an answer but an echo at best. "I'd prefer to forget, but I believe it would be worse to deny truths," she paused for an unneeded breath, "I've never hated the natural, inevitability of death before that I do yours." She said softly but with solidity. It had been voiced so quietly Laura had to piece the words together as she repeated the sounds in her head.

"Do you understand why it is beyond my ability not to adore you?" She asked with hesitancy.

Laura couldn't comprehend why the question was being asked and with a tone that implied something should be obvious. She felt herself frown as she was mentally turned around.

"Ah..no?" If the first time college student was confused before she needed a GPS for her synapses now.

"Your humanity has power. Humans are emotional, quick to harm, rarely employ common sense," she stated in a tallying way that seemed detached and Laura opened her mouth to defend, give her many opinions, "but they can surprise even us with their kindness and giving."

"Are you a closeted optimist?" Laura asked in shock.

"Hardly. I'm not closeted in any sense but perhaps more subtle than some." Carmilla stated with a shrug.

"People can be really selfish, take until you have nothing, flat out drain you or confine you, constrict you in their expectations and…sometimes it's too much." Laura said in a whispered rush, like being hushed would soften her views.

Carmilla raised an eyebrow, straightened her back slightly like the younger woman's comments demanded her, then with a shocked disbelief and a deep voice finally, unwaveringly looked at Laura to ask, "when did I become the hopeful one?"

She watched as she shrugged, clearly at war within herself, debating the redeeming traits of humanity to their downfalls. Surprisingly Laura remained silent as the minute passed, then two. "There's a couple things I know," Carmilla started gently in a casual, relaxed way, purposefully avoiding any pontification she'd previous had to endure from arrogant professors and her fellow vampires, "happiness isn't handed to you. You have to make it."

Slowly Laura looked up. The usual warmth was in them. There was a second if Carmilla wondered was her cynicism affecting Laura and changing her into someone jaded but then she had another thought. "Turn to page eighty-one." The smaller woman frowned back at her. "Sometimes other people's words can express something far better than my own," she stated with another shrug and thought Laura doubted it she found it typical of her girlfriend to be humble in regards to her speech and ability to 'string some words together into coherent sentences' as the vampire stated before they were officially girlfriends.

As she flipped through the book her thoughts jumped from how many layers Carmilla possessed, how many skills she'd acquired and fine-tuned, the ones that were natural and she stopped mid thought considering how many words Carmilla truly loved, memorized because they spoke to her, pushed her to feel.

Doubt is the heavy thing

She read the underlined sentence and the few lines that were at the end, dismissing the words in the middle that weren't.

and probably  
everything  
is possible.

Laura felt herself smile and feel lighter before she was really conscious of it. How simple and true. She tilted her head, looked at the complex woman and marveled how she could appreciate something so simple.

"We're talking about love." She paused to be certain she and Laura were on the same page. Laura seemed to breathe a sigh of relief with her nod that someone understood her views, was at the least taking the time to grasp what she was saying and part of her was letting it sink in that because Carmilla had time she wasn't rushing her but in fact valued their conversations far more than people her own age did.

For a second Laura was distracted by the change in song and looked at Carmilla's track list. Amber Run-I found. God was it making Laura feel, just feel more from a song than she had from any of her go to pop singers. "If you could call them singers and artists," Carmilla had once said. She shook her head slightly to refocus.

"It fuels the world, truly it's what drives most people. Love can encompass everything and connections to validation, acceptance, power, hate. The antithesis of love is still about love. It goes about it in an incredibly round-about way but love is rarely logical. Natural but not never black and white. I'm saying the world doesn't have to be painful and cruel. Much of…navigating it involves….perspective. You shouldn't have to convince someone to love you."

For a second Laura felt thrown Carmilla was discussing and talking this much. It was well known to herself and friends her girlfriend sat, brooded, provided blunt commentary and verbally snapped them into focus.

"Maybe it's naïve to believe love shouldn't be so hard." She paused and picked at the thread on the blanket. "But I've always believed it. Coercion shouldn't be a tool or a last ditch attempt to obtain it. Being in love…should be freeing. Transformative. With no end in sight. No thought of the ground. But the beauty and limitless sensation in the falling."

"Sooooo you haven't given this much thought at all." The younger smiled.

"Sarcasm isn't your strength, but valiant effort," Carmilla smiled and teased, enjoying how Laura couldn't help but lend her goofiness to the serious tone of their conversation.

"Really though. You should talk more often." Her own smile was sly and held an edge of pleading. "I mean you listen to great music, what is this song?" She practically yelled because the playlist was going and she had to pose the question in the moment or she'd knowingly be completely sidetracked.

"Where's my love by SYML," she said smoothly, going along with Laura's enthusiasm and borderline ADD. "The acoustic version is gorgeous and subdued. It's how you would be if you were turned into music as you're sleeping. I know that's odd but that's how vampires get close to rem. We play music over and over either in our heads or whatever tool that suits our fancy, but it becomes a mantra. It's the closest we can get to dreaming."

"Wow…" Laura said breathlessly. That explained a lot. How often Carmilla seemed to fight sleep for days or fall into it. _Also wow she created a soundtrack for me..._

"Do you want to just…listen to music and talk about…all this another day?" Carmilla offered though Laura knew they were done talking about love and death for some time. They could burn out on it. Over-discussing and analyzing wasn't going to be done in this moment and she knew that, felt it. Cerebral conversation wasn't her always go to, though she knew it was Carmilla's. Part of her wanted to fight it and say we probably won't visit these topics for months but she gently set the book down and turned to her girlfriend who was already intensely focused on her music list.

"Mmm hmmm," Laura replied as she purposefully settled into the bed further.

"Okay. This is…."

"Wait! I have a song and it made me think of you over break…" Laura scampered off to grab her ipod. With enthusiasm and a bit to her lower lip she scrolled until she found it and didn't bother plugging it into the speakers knowing her girlfriend's hearing was beyond sensitive.

Don't know much about history, don't know much biology, don't know much about a science book, don't know much about the French I took, but I do know that I love you and I know that if you love me too what a wonderful world it would be….

She watched as Carmilla gave a stunning mix of appreciation and a sexy smile.

"Sam Cooke. Using what would be the oldies for your generation," she said with a smirk and leaned forward to give the smaller woman a kiss as the song continued to play. "For the record," she said once she pulled back, "I love you." Kissed a cheek, hummed and contently said, "even though you binge watch shows, each so many cookies that anyone could assume you escaped from your Keebler elf home, somehow made it to a university but felt homesick and ate packets-PACKETS to feel less home sick."

The only reaction Laura had was to smile because who knew Carmilla, miss queen of snark and eye rolls was aware of cartoon elves! She kept smiling even though she thought she heard rain falling but frowned when she looked outside. There was sunlight and a bird literally flew by but a thunderstorm was happening in her room. Finally she noticed her song choice had stopped and Carmilla's song was a few seconds in.

Give me hope in silence, its easier, its kinder. Tell me not of heartbreak. It breaks my soul, it breaks my soul…..

Slowly she understood how contrasting and different they were down to their music. It was clear before but these songs effected Carmilla. She gave them stories and linkages in her mind. They were darker, often heavy instrumentals and beautifully composed. Laura knew her taste was light, catchy, upbeat, feel good. But they balanced each other. As the song played she pulled Carmilla closer, always finding it comforting in its predictability how Carmilla allowed it and shifted.

She hoped they would always willingly move together.

* * *

Thank you for reading. "quicken them, she flies" bit is by Mary Oliver.

Suggest listening to these: SYML-Where's My Love, Amber Run-I Found, (Rainy mood version) Mumford and Sons-The Enemy


End file.
